BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - Former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy, who completed a federal prison sentence last year in an Alabama government corruption case, is asking a judge to lift a ban on his becoming an officer in a new healthcare business he wants to start.

Scrushy, 60, and now living in Houston, Texas, stated in an affidavit filed in federal court in Birmingham that he has talked to potential investors about starting up a company to take advantage of opportunities opened up by Obamacare.

"With the passage and implementation of Obamacare, I believe that there are many new business opportunities to build and provide high quality, cost effective health care delivery systems and facilities," Scrushy stated.

An attorney for Scrushy on Thursday afternoon filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Birmingham asking that the ban contained in a 2007 settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission be removed.

The SEC in March 2003 had filed a civil enforcement lawsuit against HealthSouth and Scrushy for an alleged $2.7 billion fraud for insider trading and accounting fraud.

Scrushy was acquitted in a federal criminal trial related to the alleged $2.7 billion fraud.

But in 2006 Scrushy and former Gov. Don Siegelman were convicted of bribery and honest services fraud. Prosecutors alleged Scrushy bought a seat on a hospital regulatory board by arranging $500,000 in donations to Siegelman's 1999 campaign to establish a state lottery.

Scrushy continues to fight that conviction, despite having completed his sentence last year. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in March on Scrushy's efforts to obtain a new trial. Meanwhile he remains on three years of supervised probation.

Scrushy agreed to settle the SEC civil charges in 2007 without admitting or denying the allegations in the SEC complaint. As part of the consent decree settling those charges he paid an $81 million judgment and he agreed to a ban on him serving as an officer or director of any company that has a certain class of securities under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

Under the terms of that settlement Scrushy can seek removal of the ban five years from the date of the settlement in 2007, his attorney , Thomas V. Sjoblom, said today. "He's exercising that right that is in that final judgment," he said.

Sjoblom said he doesn't know any specifics of what Scrushy is planning for a new company. "I think there are a lot of things in the planning stage," he said.

Opportunities are available and capital could be available but investors don't want to invest in a company Scrushy starts unless he can be an officer or director, Sjoblom said. "They view him as the holder of the expertise in that area (healthcare) ... As we all know, he (Scrushy) is a great visionary," he said.

If Scrushy were to start a new business venture, he will find some attorneys going after any money he makes off it.

At a civil trial in Jefferson County Circuit Court in 2009, Scrushy
was found liable for the accounting scam and ordered to pay HealthSouth $2.8
billion in damages.

Attorneys for Healthsouth have liquidated some of Scrushy's
possessions, including his Vestavia Hills house and artwork. If he were to make
money off a new business venture, they would go after that too, one attorney
said this afternoon.

"There is no question we would do whatever we can to collect
the money for the shareholders of Healthsouth," said John Haley, a HealthSouth
shareholder lawyer from Birmingham's Hare Wynn law firm.

Haley said they will have to see what Scrushy does with a
new business and how that business is set up. The structure of the business
could make it difficult to go after assets, "but it's no reason not to try," he
said.

"I hope he does make
some money," Haley said. "He owes $3 billion so he's got a long way to go."

In his affidavit filed with the motion, Scrushy gives some clues as to what he's considering, his efforts to get capital investment, and what expertise he can lend to a company.

Scrushy states that during the fall of 2012 he met with a New York firm that provides private equity, venture capital, Wall Street analyst and investment banking services. He states they were receptive but would be unable to provide financing because of the ban on him being able to serve as an officer or director.

Scrushy states that since 1984 he has "helped start up, operate and manage three companies in the healthcare industry. All three became billion dollar companies, two became Fortune 500 companies, and all three are listed on the New York Stock Exchange."

The two Fortune 500 companies are HealthSouth Rehabilitation Corporation and MedPartners which later became CVS/ CareMark. The other listed on the NYSE is Capstone Capital, a real estate investment trust that invested in hospitals, outpatient centers, and other health care properties, he stated.

"At one time, the number of employees in the companies I chaired exceeded 80,000 employees," Scrushy states in his affidavit.

Scrushy also noted he had raised capital and served on the board of directors of more than a half dozen other companies.

With the passage of the 2010 Affordable Health Care Act and Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, two bills that together are known as "Obamacare," business opportunies have opened up in the healthcare field, Scrushy states in the affidavit.

"We need healthcare companies that can provide more and charge less," Scrushy states. "These companies need to be built differently than in the past. There is a need for less costly facilities and systems that allow these companies to operate for less, so that they can charge less and still be profitable."

"In the past, patients went to the expensive healthcare centers to get the services they needed," Scrushy states. "That business model and patient mentality must be relegated to the past. Going forward, new cost effective healthcare centers will need to be built with only the more complex and higher acuity cases directed toward more expensive healthcare centers."

Specifically, Scrushy states, there is the need to build cost effective urgent-care and emergency centers, surgical centers, and out-patient facilities such as rehabilitation centers. "Obamacare has created the incentive to build such centers and facilities," he states.

"For example, under the current insurance and rate structure, the cost of sutures at the emergency room of a hospital could be as high as $4,000, as much as $2,000 at a "free-stranding" non-hospital affiliated medical center, but could be lowered to as much as only $300 or $400 at an unaffiliated urgent care center," Scrushy states.

Scrushy also states:

- There is a need to build companies to improve billing at more cost effective pricing levels through volume delivery systems at cost effective clinics and centers.

- Companies need to evolve that will provide systems and protocols to reduce waste, including unnecessary lab and diagnostic testing, unnecessary clinical procedures, and unnecessary surgery, hospital admissions, and pharmaceutics.

- Third party payers, including insurance companies and self insured businesses, will search out companies that can provide more cost effective delivery systems, as they all will be working to bring down healthcare costs.

- Given the likely rise in cost to pharmaceutical companies of drug production because of likely increases in drug-innovator taxes under Obamacare, there is a need to design more cost effective generic drug programs, which can reduce pharmaceutical costs by as much as 30 to 40 percent.

Scrushy asks in his affidavit for a chance to put to work his proven skills in the healthcare industry to help create "high quality, cost effective health care delivery systems and facilities."

"I believe I can develop a health care business that will be beneficial to society," Scrushy states.

Updated at 2:55 p.m. May 10, 2013 with comments from attorney John Haley regarding the $2.8 billion civil verdict against Scrushy